Obsidian
by CtrlAltGiveUp
Summary: After being trapped in her reverted state and imprisoned within a weapon for forty-thousand years, Obsidian suddenly finds herself onboard an impossibly advanced starship, plummeting towards the surface of an unknown planet. As she crash-lands, her long journey home begins. Rated T for now, though that may change later.
1. Chapter 1

**PREFACE**

Alright, so first things first I have a few words to say. Aside from a few characters, places, and in one case a whole species, that I want to introduce, I don't really have a real goal in mind of where to go with this story.

The first few chapters will be setting up our protagonist's backstory and will all happen in reverse order until chapter four, which will be a direct continuation of chapter one.

Aside from this, I'll also be avoiding use of any canon characters as much as possible, while working off of the established canon as of the newest episode (as of writing this, the newest episode is Friend Ship).

Now, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

* * *

 **ONE**  
 **PRESENT DAY  
**

As soon as the solitary star the planet was orbiting began to crest the horizon with its first rays of morning light the alien city sprang into life. Its citizens started moving about their business; starting vehicles, opening up shop fronts, stumbling their ways through idle small talk with neighbours.

It was all so confusing to her. She was barely able to keep track of what everybody was doing or where they were going. Her planet wasn't like this, it was much more organised where she was from. It was the same all across the galaxy -alien races with such unimportant concerns- but she liked it. It was nice to know that there were such species in the galaxy so ignorant of anything besides themselves that they believed they could afford to care so much about the most meaningless of things.

As she walked through the streets, some of the aliens would stop what they were doing to stare at her, but only momentarily before returning their attention to their tasks. She shared the basic bipedal shape that they did, so she didn't look too out of place. She assumed the aliens must just be passing her off as somebody wearing an unusual costume.

She had only found herself on this planet seventeen local days ago, and in that short time she had learned much about this planet's inhabitants. They were a pleasant people, but had a long history of violence and war that was rather contradictory to their relatively weak physical strength. And that they called themselves "humans."

She came upon a small shop selling various types of fruit she had learned were popular amongst the inhabitants of this small island nation-state. She picked up a red, spherical fruit and tossed the shop owner a few chips of local currency from a pouch on her belt before continuing on her way. She didn't need to eat, not like the humans needed to, seeing as her body wasn't really… real. It was just a projection of hard-light. Her actual body took the form of a small piece of volcanic glass on the back of her right hand from which she drew her name: Obsidian.

She was from a race of sentient polymorphic rocks more commonly known as gems, one of the two dominating races in his galaxy. As such, she had no need for nourishment of any kind. She only ate simply because she enjoyed it.

After an hour or so of walking through the endless sprawling, maze-like streets of the city, a small communicator bead chimed quietly on the x-shaped utility harness she wore over her chest. She unclipped the small device and held it by her mouth.

"Obsidian here, go ahead."

She waited a few seconds before a voice replied back, "Distance to target?"

"Thirty metres," she replied. The street she was walking down was empty aside from a cordon erected by the local law enforcement at the far end. The building she was aiming for was on the other side of the cordon and currently playing host to a group of armed and highly dangerous terrorists.

"Understood, local officers have been alerted to your presence." The communications bead went silent and Obsidian clipped it back onto her harness.

As she approached the cordon, two officers greeter her, confirmed her identity, and then guided her to a large brown tent. They showed her into the tent before departing back to their posts. Inside, the tent was alive with commotion. A central desk was set up with paper documents and portable computer scattered about it. There were sixteen people standing around the table, all shouting at each other, arguing about one thing or another.

Only one person seemed to notice her enter, an older man with deep set eyes, a crooked nose and light brown hair, flecked with silver and matted with sweat. She saw his expressions turn from one of exasperation to relief as he realised who she was.

He straightened his back before clapping his hands to get everybody's attention. The room went silent as all eyes were directed to him.

"Gentlemen, I believe I have a solution to all of our problems." He gestured his hand towards Obsidian and everybody turned their attention to her.

"So, what is it that you want me to do?"

* * *

 **CONCLUSION**

Now that's over, please leave a review and let me know what you think so far. The more positive feedback I recieve, the more obliged I will feel to write more chapters.

There'll be no more prefaces or conclusions in subsequent chapters unless I have something important to say.

So until next time, cheerio!


	2. Chapter 2

**TWO  
SEVENTEEN DAYS AGO**

Nothing. A thousand thousand lifetimes of nothing. Then a sudden influx of every type of sensory information all at once. Blinding white lights like the core of an exploding star, the sound of a hundred different voices all yelling at once, a bitter cold hardness like sub-zero steel, and rage. The pent up rage of an eternity of imprisonment.

But it only took a moment for Obsidian's senses to adjust.

She was lying on the floor of a semi-circular room, what appeared to be an armoury, with walls coloured in various shades of pale green and lined with weapons she didn't recognise. There was a broken weapon on the floor next to her, a rifle of some kind, and there was a single door at the apex of the curved wall.

Where was she? In a prison of some kind? A fortress or barracks maybe? She pushed herself upright and headed towards the door. On the other side was a long green corridor, the near side lined with doors and the far side lined with windows. Through them she could see a green and blue planet rotating slowly, though she didn't recognise any of the landmasses. But she was definitely on a ship, she was at least certain of that much.

Through the blaring of sirens Obsidian could just make out the sound of distant voices but couldn't make out what they were saying. She was about to head in the direction of the voices when the floor lurched beneath her and she was thrown to the deck as the ship began to pitch towards the planet below at a steep angle.

"This isn't-" Obsidian startled herself with the sound of her own voice, hoarse and oddly accented after not being used for millennia. She got to her feet once more and cleared her throat before starting again. "This isn't good," she said aloud, testing the words as she slowly began to recall the right shapes to make with her mouth. "I must find the command deck." The ship began to heat up as it entered the planet's atmosphere, picking up speed as it went. A soft orange glow spread about the corridor and flames began to lick at the windows.

Obsidian took off down the corridor in what she hoped was the direction of the voices, but before she could make any significant progress a large piece of panelling blew out beside her and she was sucked out of the ship with it to plummet towards the surface. She touched the gem on the back of her hand to the crescent moon marking on her forehead and a pitch-black visor materialised over her face.

A heads-up display within the visor highlighted the ship as it shrank into the distance and began automatically calculating the trajectories of her, the ship, and the debris falling off it. The ship was a very unusual ship indeed, bright green and shaped like a giant hand.

Obsidian decided that this was, for now, not the most important thing, and that she should instead focus on falling hundreds of kilometres into the ocean below without being obliterated on impact. She twisted on the air to make herself more aerodynamic and tried to angle herself towards the horizon, putting the strange ship behind her.

As she passed through the various layers of atmosphere, her visor began to highlight various objects in the ocean; first large landmasses, then islands, then finally large ships and boats. She decided to aim herself for a large cargo vessel that was heading eastward upon which she could stow away upon until it reached land.

When she hit the water, she did so with tremendous speed, and the impact sent gouts of water high into the sky. She sank for a few seconds, disorientated by the impact and thankful that gems didn't need to breath. She pushed her way back up to the surface and scanned the horizon, hoping to see where she was in relation for the ship she was aiming for. She had landed a kilometre north of the target, which wasn't bad considering the speed at which she had been falling.

It didn't take long for Obsidian to reach the ship, and sneaking on board wasn't hard either. There were no guards of any kind, and the crew compliment was rather small. Perfect conditional for her to hide herself away and wait until the ship reached land.

The ship reached land after a few days, and Obsidian spent the time practising her abilities, going through the various techniques and doctrines she had memorised over her many years fighting as a mercenary on the frontiers of gem-controlled space. When the ship finally reached its destination Obsidian disembarked early and swam to shore. It wasn't long until she had found an abandoned residence to make camp in, mastered the local language, obtained a sum of local currency and begun to establish a local network of contacts and suppliers.

It was looking to be a long journey home.


	3. Chapter 3

**THREE  
FORTY-THOUSAND YEARS AGO**

Obsidian watched the display intently, only vaguely aware of her surroundings. The holographic sphere showed the immediate area of space in which a very large conflict was about to take place. Various coloured blips hung suspended in the air within the sphere denoting the positions of various ships; green for the mercenary fleet of which she was a part, blue for their allies from the Gem Homeworld who had hired them, and red for the unidentified ships they were about to engage.

Three other people were standing around the floating sphere with her. To her right was a gem of impressive size and imposing stature. She was mostly green and wore a myriad array of mismatched pieces of armour adorned with war trophies of all kind. This was Emerald, the high commander of the mercenary fleet. To Obsidian's left was another gem of equally imposing stature, Grey Diamond. She was tall and elegant, with angular features and wearing the adornment of an Admiral of the Fleet, as such was her position among the Homeworld Fleet. Finally, directly across from her was a small thin gem, who was fidgeting nervously and wringing her hands. She was garbed in a simple white surplice and carrying a white rod of office under her right arm. This was Milky Quartz, the local overseer for the kindergarten project being undertaken on a nearby planet, which was the only planet with life in this system.

They were standing in the massive control bridge of Grey Diamond's command vessel, Leo-class dreadnought by the name of _Lioness_. Three large view screens made up one side of the room, while the other side was dotted with a multitude of smaller screens displaying the status of different aspects and areas of the ship. Numerous gems of all ranks and positions were moving around the room, collecting reports and cross-checking sensor results.

"S-s-s-so how many ships w-w-were there, again?" stammered Milky Quartz for the fifth time in the last hour.

Grey Diamond let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fifty enemy contacts of unknown allegiance, twenty-two Homeworld vessels and thirteen mercenary vessels. How many times am I going to have to repeat myself?"

Milky Quartz was about to say something when they were interrupted by an anxious-looking gem carrying a holographic projector that was displaying reams of data.

"We've managed to deduce the composition of the opposing fleet. From the size and mass of the enemy contacts, as well as their reactor emissions, the fleet is composed of one capitol ship, four dreadnoughts, thirty-five cruisers and frigates, and finally a vanguard of ten destroyers."

"That's a crusade fleet by any account," Emerald took the projector and began scrolling through the data, updating the central holographic display in accordance with the new information. "We'll never be able to hold out against that."

Sirens began to blare all across the _Lioness_ as ten new contacts flashed into life on the spherical display. "Enemy vanguard has moved into extreme weapons range and have launched torpedoes!" Came the call from the sensor station. "Three minutes until impact!"

And with that, the battle began.

The gem fleet immediately put up a cloud of flak fire which succeeded in destroying three torpedoes, but the remaining seven slipped through the defensive cloud unscathed and scored direct hits on their targets. Four ships were destroyed completely as the torpedoes struck ordinance bays or penetrated through to the reactor cores, while another three ships reported catastrophic hull damage and were rendered inoperative. The gem fleet retaliated with a salvo of torpedoes from all torpedo-capable vessels and managed to score six direct hits, crippling three vessels and causing a reactor overload in a fourth. By the time the enemy vessels had prepared a second salvo of torpedoes it was already too late: they were now within optimal weapons range of the gem fleet's primary weapons. Vicious broadside rounds tore massive chunks of armour and superstructure from the destroyers while laser weapons lanced through the destroyers' weak armour with surgical precision. The entire enemy vanguard was obliterated in a matter of seconds.

Grey Diamond smiled as she watched the blips representing the enemy destroyers blink out one-by-one. "I looks like we still have some time until the main fleet arrives. Emerald, I want you to take our remaining destroyers and move into a flanking position here," she indicated the area in the holographic sphere where the enemy vanguard had once been. "The radiation from the debris field should mask your reactor emissions long enough for you to get two salvos of torpedoes off. Hopefully that should put a large enough dent in their fleet to even the idea out a little."

Emerald nodded in response. "Obsidian, love, stay here and take charge of our ships." She stooped down to Obsidian, who was barely over half her height, and whispered "all according to plan so far." She planted a kiss on Obsidian's cheek, then turned and strolled off the bridge.

 _In more ways than you know_ , Obsidian thought to herself.

"You two share a very close relationship. It seems the rumours about your little group's savagery are quite untrue." Mused Grey Diamond as she tapped away at the control panel for the holographic sphere.

"She found me on an abandoned kindergarten world and raised me herself, taught me everything I know." This wasn't entirely true. While Emerald had found her on an abandoned kindergarten and taught her many things, the reality of it was that Obsidian was a member of an organisation known as the Obsidian Temple, an order of assassins, spies, saboteurs, and intelligence officers that acted as a secret police within gem society, had tasked her with keeping an eye on the dangerous mercenary warlord Emerald and, most recently, eliminating a member of the Diamond Authority whose controversial opinions and unorthodox methods were beginning to cause problems: Grey Diamond.

And the perfect opportunity to do so had arisen. A new alien empire was beginning to make its presence known that the Obsidian Temple wanted to know more about, Emerald was hungry for a new fight, and not too concerned against whom, and Grey Diamond had taken her fleet to inspect a small outpost in an isolated and vulnerable sector of gem space.

"T-t-this is hardly the t-t-time for talking about p-personal relationships!" shouted the usually meek Milky Quartz who was now absolutely livid, and the whole control bridge was stunned into silence by her outburst. "There is an entire f-fleet out there poised to l-l-lay waste to my planet and you're t-t-talking about p-personal relationships!"

"You're right; this is no time for idle small talk." Grey Diamond turned and strolled over to the other side of the control bridge so she could issue orders to her command staff. Obsidian was still watching the holographic display, tracking the course of the destroyers Emerald was commanding.

As soon as they entered the debris field the destroyers became undetectable to all sensors and the radiation began to jam communications, and that's when Emerald's plan kicked into motion. The mercenary ships deployed all broadside weapons and opened fire. Grey Diamond's destroyers were ripped apart in a single salvo, caught completely unaware. As the 'enemy' ships drew closer, the destroyers turned to face the rest of the gem fleet and unleashed a punishing salvo of torpedoes at what was essentially point-blank range. There wasn't enough time for the gem fleet to react, and every torpedo found its target.

Alarms began screeching throughout the _Lioness_ as multiple hits were registered all across the ship's superstructure. Damage reports came flooding in from the fleet reporting massive damage and multiple casualties. Milky Quartz screamed and dived to the floor as computer stations blew out and gems were cracked and shattered. Grey Diamond began bellowing orders at her crew as the second salvo of torpedoes emerged from the debris field. Now it was time for Obsidian to act.

She touched the gem in the back of her hand to her forehead and a full-face visor sprang into existence. She then put the backs of her hands together and, with a bright flash, her weapons materialised. Two small gauntlets now encased her hands, each sporting four glossy black blades.

In a single motion, she turned and leapt towards Grey Diamond, claws ready to deliver a punishing diagonal slice. Grey Diamond sensed her coming, touched the gem on her hip and drew a long sabre from it. She turned and blocked the blow with ease.

"Damned traitor! I should never have trusted you!"

Obsidian smiled wryly behind her mask and studied the data scrolling across her vision. "I'm not the traitor, Diamond. The Temple wants you gone." Obsidian swiped low, aiming for Grey Diamond's knee. Grey Diamond leapt backwards, but misjudged the distance and hit the large view screen at the end of the room. Obsidian jumped after her and plunged her claws deep into Grey Diamond's chest. Grey Diamond was momentarily horrified before Obsidian wrenched her claws downwards and sliced her gem clean in half. Her body disappeared in a cloud of smoke and the two halves of her gem clattered to the deck.

Obsidian was about to bend down and pick up the halves when a thin white rod emerged through the centre of her chest.

"You'll take no p-p-prize this day, assassin." Milky Quartz whispered from behind her.

And then the whole world went black.


	4. Chapter 4

**FOUR**

 **PRESENT DAY**

Obsidian read through the plans once more, before finally deciding against using them. She had been in the tent with the law enforcement officials for the past hour, going over various plans for dealing with the terrorists holed up inside the building. This was the first time she had worked directly with humans in this manner and she was almost certain it would be the last. There was so much beurocracy and there were so many rules and regulations involved that Obsidian was beginning to get frustrated.

"This will not do, this absolutely will not do." She threw the papers onto the table, much to the annoyance of everybody in the tent. "I don't see why I have to do this in conjunction with your officers."

"Alright, I give in" said the older man at the end of the table they were sitting at. "We'll let you do this by your rules, but please, please, try to leave as many alive as possible." He had introduced himself earlier as DCI Arthur Rathbourne of the Metropolitan Police, and that it was him who had requested assistance with the current situation. Right now he was massaging the bridge of his nose and looking like he wished he hadn't.

"You have my word, Rathbourne." Obsidian stood up from her chair and left the tent. Once outside the tent, she unclipped the communications bead from her combat harness and pressed the activation stud on it. "Voice, we have the go-ahead to commence the operation." There was a brief moment of static before the reply came through.

"Understood. Good luck, Obsidian." She clipped the bead away again, and turned to look at the building the terrorists were supposedly hiding in. They had made no demands as of yet, or any contact with the outside at all for that matter, but two brutally mutilated bodies of the fifteen people known to be in the building had been tossed from the third floor window. The terrorists hadn't been seen directly either, just silhouettes against the curtains. She had been told to assume they were heavily armed and armoured, although that was no problem for her abilities.

Obsidian closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then began to recite a selection of the pre-battle techniques she had learned during her extensive training in the Obsidian Temple and under Emerald's tutelage. The techniques prepared her both physically and mentally for the coming combat, so that she was fully prepared. Lastly she whispered an oath of commitment; a vow to some long-forgotten gods of old that she would complete her mission or die trying.

As she opened her eyes, all of the officers had vacated the immediate area around her and the building, creating a perimeter around the area in which she could deal with the situation uninterrupted. She stretched her hands out before her, left hand placed atop her gem, and willed her weapons into existance. With a flash of white light her two bladed gauntlets appeared around her hands, reflecting the morning light. Obsidian eyed up the building, looking for an ideal entrance. The roof, she decided, would suffice.

She crouched to the floor and with a push of her legs she propelled herself up above the building, then dropped to land deftly on the roof. It was mostly empty aside from a few deep pits, each of which contained a window at the bottom. Perfect. She placed her hand to her face and summoned her visor, and then, using her claws to slow her descent, she dropped down onto the window at the bottom of the nearest pit. The glass was tough enough to take her weight, but she could feel that it wouldn't last long. She cut a circular hole in the glass and dropped down into the room below.

Immediately she was hit by the putrid stench of death. People had died here, a lot of people. Obsidian could hear heavy footsteps outside the room she was in, and a low growling sound. As far as she was aware, humans did not make sounds like that. She crept slowly towards the door and placed her ear against it, listening to the footsteps. She was in luck; the footsteps were heading away from her. Pulling the door ajar, Obsidian attempted to see what was making the noise. The corridor outside was too dark to pick out any proper details, but her visor managed to draw approximate outlines around everything. In the centre of the corridor was something truly horrifying. A shapeless mass of arms, legs, eyes, and mouths, all wrapped in cloth and rags. As her visor ran through various algorithms to enhance resolution and apply colour, it began automatically running comparisons against all known life forms. The visor completed its tasks quickly, and the results horrified Obsidian. The creature was the result of artificially fused gems, something Obsidian had thought impossible.

She flung the door open and dived towards it, hell bent on destroying the abomination. The creature screamed as it saw her coming, but was too late to react. She slashed three of its arms off in a single swipe, and they turned to smoke as they fell away from its body. It screeched and twisted around to face her, revealing a gaping maw in the centre if its mass. In the centre of this tooth-filled pit was its gem: a multicoloured cluster of different gem shards fused together through unknown means. Another of its arms grabbed for her and she sliced that off too, then began tearing into its body as it staggered backwards in pain. After a few deep cuts the gem-thing's body burst into a cloud of smoke and the gem at its core clattered to the ground.

"What is this abhorrent creation?" Obsidian asked herself as she picked up the gem and encased it within a translucent black bubble. She activated her communications bead and spoke into it.

"Voice, I am sending you something. Please do not touch it, I will explain everything later." With a touch, she teleported the bubbled gem to the building where she had made her temporary headquarters, and where Voice was currently located.

"Alright, I'll- whoa. I wasn't expecting that." Obsidian was about to explain when she was interrupted by a scream from somewhere within the building.

"There may be more bubbled gems coming your way. Standby." She clipped the communications bead away without waiting for a response and moved further into the building. She performed a full sweep of the top floor before moving on, but found no more of the abominations.

 _What had to happen on this planet to result in the creation such creatures? There is more to this planet than meets the eye_ , Obsidian thought to herself as she moved down to the first floor. There were three more of the things on this level, each one uniquely disgusting in appearance. As she dispatched each one in turn, she bubbled their gems and sent them back to Voice in her headquarters so that she could study them later. She found no living humans on either floor, just the viciously brutalised remains of humans who had been too slow to escape the gem abominations' wrath. On the ground floor she could hear one last creature, but while searching for it she found two terrified survivors -a mother holding her small child- cowering in the corner of a room.

"Who's there?" the woman asked as Obsidian pushed the door open slowly, "stay away from me!"

"It is okay," she said in her kindest voice. "I am a friend." Obsidian crept slowly into the room and offered her hand to the woman. "Come with me, you are safe now." Her right gauntlet dissipated in a flash of light as the woman tentatively reached out to take her hand. She gently helped the woman to her feet. "Come quickly, we must get out of here." Still holding the woman's hand, she moved back to the door and made sure the coast was clear before moving out into the hall and making her way towards the exit.

The exit grew ever closer as they moved quickly through the building, but they weren't quick enough. Lumbering out of a side-corridor, it's many claws dripping with wet blood, came the last abomination. This one was bigger than the others, filling the corridor with its sheer bulk and trailing a long tail covered in writhing arms behind it. Obsidian let go of the woman's hand and summoned her gauntlet back into reality.

"Stay behind me, I will not let it harm you." The woman nodded and took a few fearful steps backwards. She took a low stance and readied herself to strike the beast as it dragged it's bulk through the corridor towards them. It's gem wasn't located on the side facing down the corridor, and Obsidian assumed that it was somewhere along its tail. A low burbling sound began to emit from the abomination's many lip-less, quivering mouths that dotted the lower half of it's main body.

With a surprising burst of speed uncharacteristic of its bulk, the creature propelled itself down the corridor and began to swing wildly at Obsidian with massive, crushing fists. She ducked and weaved about its blows, knowing that a single hit from a being of this power could spell her doom. When an opening finally appeared in the abomination's relentless barrage of attacks, Obsidian took her chance and struck out with one of her claws, cutting an arm off and plunging her blades as deep into its body as she could. The abomination let out a tremendous roar before vanishing into a cloud of smoke. The smoke settled around the feet of the hall's remaining inhabitants before dissipating entirely to reveal it's misshapen, multicoloured gem. She picked this one up and studied it for a short while. Up close it was even more horrific than she had expected, consisting of many shards of various types and sizes of gems melded into one another through unknown means. Obsidian grimaced, bubbled it, and sent it off to Voice.

With a sigh of relief, the mission was complete. Since arriving on Earth Obsidian had found very little in the way of work, most of it being menial tasks or protecting seemingly unimportant VIP's. It was good to know that her combat skills hadn't degraded during the thousands of years trapped in her gem.

She turned to the woman and offered her hand, "come, we can leave now." Obsidian's gauntlets vanished as the woman took her hand and she escorted her from the building. As soon as they were outside, two of Rathbourne's officers escorted the woman over to a medical vehicle of some kind, and eight more stormed into the building, eager for some glory, no doubt. She descended the stairs to ground level and headed for the cordon, where Rathbourne was waiting for her.

"We could hear the screams from here," he exclaimed, his face pale with fear, "what happened in there?"

Obsidian pulled a small data-chip from the back of her visor, just under her left ear, and handed it to Rathbourne saying, "here, I have recorded all the data you need onto this, it will explain everything. If you have any further need of me, contact me by the usual means." Rathbourne nodded and took the chip from her and looked like he was about to say something, but simply nodded once more, and then left to go and examine the data. Obsidian's visor vanished and she took the communicator bead from her harness once more.

"Voice, mission complete. Initiate site-to-site transport." The centre of her utility harness began to glow a bright blue, and with a flash of light she was gone, pulled into the ancient gem transportation network contained within the planet's etheric plane.


	5. Chapter 5

**FIVE**  
 **PRESENT DAY**

Obsidian sailed through the warp stream towards her destination. She gazed around in silent wonder at her surroundings, trying to estimate how far gem technology had advanced while she'd been absent. Obsidian had been vaguely aware of etheric plane theory, and the possibilities it represented, but she had never imagined something on a planetary scale was possible. Not only was this warp network showing signs of age and disrepair, but Obsidian had discovered evidence of impossibly advanced, yet equally ancient, gem-tech across the whole planet. So far, she had surmised that these were the remnants of some ancient war that had long since passed out of human memory. Who had the gems fought in the war? The humans? Other gems?

The metallics?

Obsidian shuddered at the thought. If the metallics had pushed their armies through the borders of gem-controlled space and deployed their full military might, then it was entirely possible that...

No. Obsidian dismissed the idea and decided that this train of thought was best continued some other time as the circle of light that was her destination rushed towards her. With a flash of light, Obsidian rematerialised back on Earth.

She was standing on a raised plinth of glossy blue stone amid a field of lush green grass, to the north of which was a forest of thin, white-barked trees through which ran a gentle stream that flowed southwards down the eastern edge of the field and pooled into a small dike beside a narrow dirt road. To the west, up a shallow incline, lay a small house. Though humble in appearance, this house contained an entrance to a much larger underground complex in which Obsidian had made her temporary home while stranded on this planet.

Obsidian had not built this complex herself, nor was it a piece of the ancient gem-tech she had been seeing across the planet. The complex had been built many years before her arrival by the human who currently owned it; a man she knew only as Voice.

She crossed the field at a casual pace, allowing the gentle breeze to blow the scent of the local flora around her. Obsidian had allowed herself to enjoy quite a few moments of calm like this since arriving on Earth, something she had found to be very rare aboard the noise of industrial machinery that perpetually resonated throughout Emerald's ships.

Emerald. Obsidian lingered on that thought for a few seconds. She was egotistical, headstrong, and prideful. Everything Obsidian didn't like in people, and yet she found herself hoping to meet again with Emerald more than anyone else.

"It must be a result of prolonged exposure," she surmised.

"What must?"

Obsidian would have jumped out of her skin if her body wasn't just a hard-light projection. She'd been standing outside the house's front door for a while, completely oblivious to Voice who was now standing in the open doorway.

She scowled at him. "Nothing for you to concern yourself with."

Voice rolled his eyes and retreated back into the house.

"And I hope you have not touched those bubbles." Obsidian followed him inside.

"'Course I bloody well haven't, who knows what they could be!" Voice tapped a rhythm onto the screen of an apparently broken monitor in the corner of one of the dusty, old rooms and the wall next to it receded to reveal a downwards staircase. They proceeded down the stairs, arguing all the way. Voice was desperate to know what was in the bubbles. Obsidian didn't know exactly, and was too proud to admit that.

They entered into the underground complex, the sounds of their voices reverberating through the empty hallways and rooms and filling the place with sound.

"Look, if you're not going to tell me what's inside those things, at least tell me how you did that."

"That?"

"You know, put them in those orbs and sent them here."

"I am a gem," Obsidian stated as if that alone would be sufficient explanation.

"And let me guess; you just can."

"Yes."

"Look, you've only been here seventeen days so perhaps you haven't figured it out yet but we humans aren't used to seeing things like that. You need to be a bit more forthcoming with your explanations."

"I'll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it."

Voice let out an exasperated sigh and gave up with his questioning. They navigated the maze of corridors for a short time in silence before coming to a large pair of double doors. Passing through, they entered into a large octagonal control room-like area with many of the walls covered in monitors displaying all kinds of information. Three humans, none of which Obsidian had bothered to acquaint herself with, were hard at work on various projects about the room. Only one human, a female with long red hair, even seemed to notice their arrival, but said nothing.

In the centre of the room floated the bubbled gems Obsidian had sent here. She collected them, took them to a nearby workstation and began the arduous task of figuring out just what these things were.


End file.
